Politics. Sex. Science. Art. You know, the good stuff.

Stephanie Zvan is an analyst by trade, but she's paid not to talk about it. She is also the associate president of Minnesota Atheists and one of the hosts for their radio show and podcast, Atheists Talk. She speaks on science and skepticism in a number of venues, including science fiction and fantasy conventions.

Stephanie has been called a science blogger and a sex blogger, but if it means she has to choose just one thing to be or blog about, she's decided she's never going to grow up. In addition to science and sex and the science of sex, you'll find quite a bit of politics here, some economics, a regular short fiction feature, and the occasional bit of concentrated weird.

Oh, and arguments. She sometimes indulges in those as well. But I'm sure everything will be just fine. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

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EVENTS

10. Knowing that I traveled hundreds of miles to spend a weekend mostly with people who live less than 20 miles from me.

9. Being welcomed back by the bartender in the Governor’s Club. He’s ours and we’re his, even if we only see him once a year.

8. Getting called for telling people things about themselves that are absolutely characteristic but never acknowledged, unique quirks that people don’t necessarily love about themselves but that I find charming because, without them, this person wouldn’t be the person I like. The phrase she used was, I think, “It sounds so complimentary–and so vicious.”

7. Having said person apologize the next day for doing to me exactly what I’d just done to her.

6. The child-free panel. It only ended an hour after it was scheduled to. I don’t think I’d realized how much I self-censor on the topic until I saw no need to. That one will happen again.

5. Catching up with Tracy. It’s always a highlight of WisCon. It might, in fact, be enough of a highlight to explain why we don’t talk the rest of the year. Counterintuitive but true.

4. Creating instant happiness with sock monkeys.

3. Meeting and chatting with sdn. It was an exercise in reverse perspective. She got more life sized the closer she got. Way cool.

2. Discovering that someone I’ve always liked but haven’t had many opportunities to talk to is the friend I thought he might be. Getting to have a few brief moments of that conversation.

1. Total fangirl squee moment. Having Ellen Kushner tell me to go write the story of one of her characters because she wasn’t interested in doing it. My writing skills are currently wholly inadequate, but if I’m ever able to do the story justice, I may have to take her up on it.

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Cognitive Daily, my I-haven’t-completely-abandoned-my-college-major daily read, has a link to this NPR interview with a probability expert on the futility of trying to predict the next Harry Potter phenom and other highly unlikely things. My favorite part (of course) of the Cognitive Daily article:

He also mentions the propensity to risk more to avoid losses than to make gains. This can explain why publishers are so quick to reject even promising works by unproven writers. Taleb suggests that publishers should be offering more contracts to writers because that small risk can have such a vast reward.

I’m all for that. Now, how do we convince them?

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Over on Making Light, there’s a thread about Entertainment Weekly‘s list of the top 25 SF movies and TV shows from the last 25 years. Stargate SG-1 is not only not on EW’s list, it isn’t recommended in the 233 comments prior to mine at Making Light. Torchwood (blegh) was listed, but SG-1 wasn’t. That floored me.

Full fangeek confession here: Not only do we own five seasons of the show, we also get together with friends on Fridays for dinner and to watch. When the show is on hiatus, the only thing we’ve done that’s more than a placeholder is watch the new Doctor Who. Otherwise, we’re just waiting for our stories to come back.

I’m not sure why it’s less than cool in the SF fan community to like SG-1, but I’m not ashamed to say that I do. In the interest of combating lists with lists, here’s why.

The writers know how to pay me back for an hour of my time. Too many shows right now go in for soap opera storytelling, where I have to put in hours of watching before anything is resolved. Not SG-1. The arc goes on, but something is resolved every hour (or two).

The characters are geeks. Each of the team (including rotating members) has an overriding passion.

The characters are bright. They’re risk takers, since it’s the nature of their profession, but they mitigate the risk where possible.

There are consequences. Decisions made in one episode affect the events in later episodes, later seasons. Sometimes this is a good thing. Sometimes expediency proves to be terribly short-sighted.

There are non-fatal consequences. The writers trust me as an audience member enough to ease up on the stakes from time to time. These episodes are still compelling.

Enemies of our enemies are not necessarily our friends. In fact, enemies have become (uneasy) allies when a new, bigger threat looms.

Our allies don’t have the same priorities we do. Our friends from other planets and races have responsibilities to their own people that come first. Everyone wants to know what the risks and potential for gain is for them before deciding whether to help.

Ascension may be a long-term goal to be aspired to, but nobody’s really ready to leave behind being human while they still have another choice.

Ba’al. Woof. (Four Ba’als in one room? Intriguing, but a little creepy.)

The characters have frequent philosophical differences. They are rarely resolved.

Nobody seems to be afraid that being funny means they won’t be taken seriously.

There are good scientists and bad scientists, pragmatic scientists and space cases. Being a scientist doesn’t keep a character from being a human being. Ditto for women. Ditto for people in military or government service.

Our main characters are highly competent people, but they work at it. They don’t spend a lot of time, say, in front of the TV.

The new big gun/shield is always a stopgap. Technology never stands still.

There’s plenty of fan service, but it never overruns the story. Except maybe episode 200. I’m not sure. I was too busy laughing for most of it.